By the time the lights had been set up and the cameras loaded, some guests were lit and loaded, too.

A few lines of banter took six or seven takes. “Repetition may kill the soul, but sometimes it’s needed for a good take,” Mailer observed.

Theodoracopulos said it was three takes, and remembers telling Talese in the scene: “Due to your uxorious nature, you think the Romans invented sex, whereas the Greeks did.”

Talese replied, “Yes, but we invented sex between men and women.”

Alec Baldwin and Demi Moore film “Blind” in New York.Pacific Coast News

Baldwin plays a bitter novelist who loses his sight and his wife in a car crash. Moore plays an Upper East Side socialite, implicated in her husband’s insider trading, who is forced to read to Baldwin as part of her community service.

The screenplay was written by the Mailer’s half-brother John Buffalo Mailer. The director plans to edit the film in time for a May premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.